Blind Promises

33. Morning Run

Liam drug her out of bed before the sun was up the next morning. She grumbled at him but he took the blanket with him, asshole. Gwen stumbled down the stairs and into the kitchen where both of them stood fully dressed and bright-eyed. She growled, it was way too early for this crap. "What in the hell? It's ass o'seven in the morning, wtf are we doing up?"

"I believe you mean, Zero Dark Thirty, Miss Denton," Rich corrected her.

She glared at him, "Excuse me, I'm not on military time, officer. You'll have to forgive me." Today was not going to be a good day unless it had a nap in it.

"Unsat. Major."

Liam kissed the back of her neck while she was looking into the fridge for something to drink. Something with caffeine and sugar preferably. "I'll start instruction during downtime."

"I am not caffeinated enough for either of you. There isn't even sun out, the air isn't even respectable to breathe outside, what do you want from me?" There was going to be a huge discrepancy in their lives if this went on, she could not live like this. Early mornings were not natural. "There is a natural order to things and waking up before things that go to sleep for the day have had the chance to do so is against that order. I like to give them a respectable amount of time to den up, at least mid-morning."

"Someone's been living on the beach too long. I'm not saying who but I'm going to call it and say they're not wearing pants." Rich got one more jab in before he put enough space in between himself and the little IED.

Gwen shot him a look that implied death, "GTFO."

"I thought you said you weren't on military time."

"It's a universal language, nerds invented that shit, just because you picked it up and co-opted our shit doesn't mean it's yours. Along with half of your cute acronyms and slang. OMFG. I'm not kidding, why did you drag me out of bed? Just to poke me with sticks to see how long it would take before I'd start biting? Ugh." Fingernails were digging into her palms, it was a few moments before she realized they were her own. Screw it, coffee or nothing, she grabbed the half and half out of the fridge. A mug, plenty of sugar, coffee, and cream later she was relatively tuned out to both of them.

"Gwen!"

"What?!" she looked at both of them crossly.

Rich scratched his eyebrow, strangely interested in his shoe, Liam stood on either side of her and rubbed her arms, "Okay, let's try this again, we were thinking we'd watch the sunrise and then go for a morning run."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, we've got to do a couple of PFTs in a few weeks," he reiterated. She was staring at him in disbelief. She finally put her hands up, "Okay, you two are hilarious. Now go for your run and I'll go back to bed, everything will be fine when you get back."

"I am serious. You've never been around the island on foot, it's nice."

The ceramic mug clanked into the sink when she sat it down, she was shaking her head, "Liam, I have never intentionally ran in my life and I don't plan to." The cadence of a steadily quickening pulse was concerning, it wasn't the same, it wasn't. He wasn't telling her that her body wasn't good enough. Was he? "I need to use the restroom, give me a few?"

Cooper was on her heels up the stairs and first through the door, she shut it. Face first onto the mattress she just laid there a while, he nudged her occasionally. Hot tears soaked into the sheet, she hated it, she wasn't sad, she was angry. The door opened, she didn't care which one it was, she wasn't moving, talking, or otherwise having anything to do with either of them. "You have to go, one of us has to go, and since the other one of you is downstairs, it has to be you. Take Coop if you need to, I'll manage without him." She was proud of the steadiness of her voice given the fury of her emotional state.